Wake me up when forever ends
by stilljustme
Summary: Takes place fifty years after the series' ending: Rebekah's had her share of human years. Now it's time to say farewell.


**This is the first piece I've written in a long time, so please forgive me – and tell me – if it's a (great) bit rusty.**

„Mister Gerard? It won't be long, now." Nurse Jenny didn't flinch as he blurred past her, just the way she'd never wondered why a man in his mid-thirties would spend so much time with an old crone who definitely wasn't his mother. He had manipulated her as soon as Rebekah'd moved in five years ago.  
They'd had fifty years after Elijah and Klaus had died. Fifty years of freedom – a feeling so new to both of them it had almost torn them apart. They'd fought for days, they'd separated for weeks. It had almost ended after three years, and this time there had been no family oath, no Klaus to blame.

In front of the door Marcel stopped and took a deep breath. None of their fights mattered now.  
He hadn't been sleeping down there in the waiting room. He'd sat with his eyes closed, listening to his wife's heartbeat, her weakening breaths. Jenny hadn't told him any news, she had only given a title to what would be, he realised, the darkest chapter of his life.

"I can see your shadow." The voice from inside the room was quiet but clear, and the smile he heard in it was the same as two hundred years ago.  
Quickly Marcel wiped the tears off and walked in. Rebekah was sitting upright in the sick bed, the yellowish paleness of her skin betraying her smile. "Hello, Marcellus."  
He tensed at the name as he sat down at the bedside and reached for her wrinkly hands. "Why so serious, my love? Did the nurses forbid you to sugar your tea again?"  
"That would be a miracle, since you've manipulated them to indulge my every whim." A tiny smile, for his sake, then she swallowed. "Because I'm dying. And there are a few things I need to tell you."  
She paused, waiting for an answer Marcel couldn't give. He held her hand to his lips and kissed it, then carefully placed it onto the blanket. He felt his wife's eyes on him but refused to meet her glance, focusing on the fragile fingers instead.  
"Marcel. Please."  
Reluctantly he looked up and was at once overwhelmed by the intensity and love in Rebekah's eyes. More than her smile, more than her pride, more than the sheer perfectness of her being it were her eyes that had him spellbound since their first encounter. Through all the fights, the anger, the lies her eyes had spoken the truth, and they did now.  
"I'm sorry." Her voice was soft now. "I know it's not going to be-"  
"You don't have to die." The words tumbled out before he could hinder them. "Rebekah, you can still choose life." _Choose me_. It was selfish but he couldn't stop it. He had offered her, begged her to let him bite her more than once. It was almost a ritual now.  
And as always, her answer was the same. "Immortality is not life. Not the way it's meant to be."  
"You and I are meant to be!"  
"And we've had a wonderful time together." She leaned forward and cupped his face in her hands. "I wouldn't change one moment of the past fifty years. I have felt stronger as a human by your side than I'd ever felt as a vampire. It was worth waiting almost a thousand years for this, Marcel. For you. For us." Her lips touched his, almost shyly. He pulled her close and intensified the kiss, keeping her from speaking further for another second. Seconds. That was what he was fighting for now.  
Eventually she pulled back. "It's time to move on now, for both of us. Besides" she tried to smile despite the tears that were slowly travelling down her cheeks now, "do you really think you could love an eighty-four-year-old?"  
He forced himself to smile back but his tone remained serious. "Rebekah Mikaelson. I loved you when you were eight- _hundred_ years old. I'm pretty sure I could handle this. Better than I will handle losing you."  
Her smile was genuine, now. "You will handle it. I trust you. And you know – Helga's always waiting for you."  
"What a perspective!" He laughed despite himself. Thirty-seven years ago they had travelled to Norway. Neither of the Mikaelson siblings had ever returned to their home after they'd fled, and of course things had changed. The woods were gone, the river dry. Nobody remembered the village Rebekah had lived in, or the bigger cities around. But the myth of a man turning his children into demons was still known, and one woman, Helga, had claimed to know the direction of his house. He'd asked her alone, and she'd been very willing to walk through the woods with him. However, her eagerness somehow disappeared when he'd told her he was married, and happily so.  
As for the remaining Mikaelson family members, they were happy and safe too. Hope had visited only two weeks ago with her daughter, holding her first grandson in her arms. Freya, Keelin and Vincent had ended up with not one but two boys who were both married now – to a werewolf and vampire, to keep things fun. They'd had a double wedding at Yellowstone National Park, and even with the manipulating force of dozens of vampires rumours coursed.

"We've made great memories. And many of them." Rebekah leaned back in the cushions, seemingly exhausted.  
Marcel sighed. "Not nearly enough."  
"Hey! This is what most of us get. Humans, werewolves, witches if they're not powerful enough… we've had a lifetime, Marcel! More, actually. You know that. You have to let me go now."  
He closed his eyes. She was making sense, of course. And she'd told him from the beginning it would end like this.  
"Please." Her hands found his and squeezed them, birdlike, light as a feather. "Please don't be mad at me. Not too long, at least."  
Marcel took a deep breath. "How could I?" he murmured, opening his eyes to her relieved smile. And it was true. He was mad at time for hasting like that, he was mad at Klaus for offering Rebekah the potion, and most of all he was mad at himself for being so weak now, for being the one to be consoled when it should be the other way around.  
"Thank you."

He lay down beside her, pulling her close one last time. Rebekah closed her eyes, nestling close to him like she had done so many times, in so many circumstances.  
"I wonder what it is like" she whispered. "Or if there's nothing at all."  
"Of course there is something" he reassured her. "Hope told us about Hailey and Jackson, remember?"  
"Hailey and Jackson together would be hell for Elijah. Do you think there's only one heaven? And one hell for all of us who weren't as good as Hailey to burn in?" For the first time there was fear in Rebekah's voice, and Marcel gently stroked her cheek. "I don't know how it works any more than you do" he said, "but we know from Freya that your brother's souls are at peace, so yours will be too."  
"I'm looking forward to seeing them again. I miss them." The pain in her voice cut deep, even after all these years. By now Marcel understood her grief.  
"I miss them too. Say hi to them for me."  
"I will." Rebekah closed her eyes. "I love you, Marcel. Always and forever."

Her head dropped just a little as her body became still. She didn't turn to flames or ashes but simply lay there in his arms, utterly quiet. Utterly gone.  
Only when Jenny had come and left, calling for help did Marcel break the silence, through the sobs that waited behind his gritted teeth, repeating the words that were both blessing and curse, beginning and end of everything he knew: "Always and forever."


End file.
